


Gift Receipt

by AithuzahFic (veritably_mad)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Multi, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:18:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritably_mad/pseuds/AithuzahFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Merlin and Arthur discover that they're soulmates, and are none too pleased about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** MERLIN AND ARTHUR DO NOT LOVE EACH OTHER BY THE END.
> 
> I REPEAT: DO NOT GO INTO THIS EXPECTING MERLIN AND ARTHUR TO COME OUT THE OTHER END HAPPY AND LOVEY-DOVEY. This is not that kind of AU. It's based on a text post I've linked in the End Notes, and I stay true to that post.
> 
> If you're still okay with reading a fic where **Merlin and Arthur don't end up in love** , go right on ahead and proceed.
> 
> UPDATE: Chapter 2 is an Alternate Ending of purple prose and silliness where Merthur does, in fact, end up united. It's absolute, cracky ridiculousness, but hey! It's there.

You’d think love at first sight would be more common, or at least, Merlin had always expected it should be. Soul-Marks appeared on a person’s skin during their life to declare their true compatibility—true _love,_ according to romantics and 95% of all media in the world—with whomever bore an identical Mark. Some soulmates had known each other for years before their Marks appeared, while others form before they’ve even met each other.

It stood to reason, then, that the universe had it all planned out, didn’t it? Who matched perfectly with whom, and all that. So why have them appear at random? Why not from birth, or from the moment they form the connection, or the first time they meet?

Of course there were Mark-Matching sites with advanced image recognition software to compare and match each Mark’s unique features and hue to the rest of their database. People threw themselves at the chance to find love and acceptance wherever they could find it, and Soul-Marks were the world’s guarantee that they could and would.

But what had people done before the Internet? Put their lives on hold and searched until they gave up, found the person they’d been scouring the earth to find, or died in the process.

It all seemed like shoddy organization on the universe’s part, Merlin thought.

It was a thought that became a little more manic later on in his life, because while he hadn’t made sense of those questions, he had previously assumed that there could, possibly, be a real explanation. Magic, Destiny, the chaotic whims of the universe...maybe it somehow knew exactly what it was doing with all this Soul-Mark nonsense, even if Merlin would never understand.

Until every minute granule of faith he’d had in the world’s ineffable master plan flew out the window. And then burned into nothingness in the Sun’s scorching flames.

Because _no fucking way_ was he compatible with Arthur Fuckhead Pendragon.

It was impossible.

It was undeniable.

He knew, because they had denied it at length, with every conceivable test to find the barest hint of a difference between their Marks. But even without the tests trying and failing to find the slightest variation in hue, in form, in vibrance, they knew. They could feel it.

To Merlin, it mostly felt like the pseudo-psychic-emotional equivalent of trying to run a three-legged race while tied to someone who erroneously believes the finish line is in a completely different direction: unbalanced, exhausting, frustrating, precarious, and often painful, with frequent urges to murder his running-mate and drag him along as dead weight.

If Merlin Emrys and Arthur Pendragon could agree on anything, it was their desperate desire to travel back in time and prevent themselves from ever meeting each other. Merlin had daydreams of paradoxing the mere possibility of its occurrence out of existence.

He knew it wasn’t that simple, but really?

 _Fuck_ destiny.

 

It begins like this.

Before Merlin ever met Arthur, their pleasantly _separate_ personal galaxies began to collide. The first, outermost stars brushed by each other, then began to mix in distant, glittery swirls, folding trails of light into unified paths, solar systems consolidating into new orbits, until at last, the very heart of them impacted in a devastating blast of destruction.

It begins with Merlin’s mother taking a temp job for Arthur’s father. Hunith couldn’t stand Uther’s cruel rigidity and cold furies, but before she quit and moved on with her infant son, she bonded with Uther’s close friend and trusted employee. She and Gaius kept in touch for years, and he would visit on holidays with the rest of Merlin’s scattered family, and Merlin grew up—as Arthur did, though neither of them knew it—knowing the old man as Uncle Gaius.

(In fact, it was many years before Merlin learned that they had no blood relation whatsoever. This revelation was, at the time, world-shattering news.)

Through various classes, chance encounters, and friends-of-friends, Merlin’s group found its core members over the years:

Will had been there since the day Merlin and his mum moved into their little neighbourhood. He’d climbed over the barely-unloaded piles of boxes and tipped over a stack that, miraculously, held nothing breakable. He tumbled down and landed right at Merlin’s feet, unhurt but winded, before he squinted up accusingly and asked, “What’re you doing making a mess all over Missus Winsbury’s garden?” after which he decided he liked Merlin’s superhero shirt and wanted to be friends.

Gwen came into Merlin’s life like a sunbeam through his classroom window, bright and warm and energizing. She made schooling bearable, and though he wouldn’t always admit it, enjoyable; she managed to figure out the way to latch his interest onto any subject that threatened to lose it.

Merlin was a little star-struck by Gwen’s older brother Elyan for a while, before they had a chance to spend time together and rid Merlin of the notion that he was anything but an excitable, adventurous troublemaker like Will. He stopped seeing Elyan as an all-knowing Older Brother, and started seeing him a friend as close to him as family.

Elyan dated Elena for long enough that they were dubbed El-squared, but when they broke up, it was almost like nothing had changed. Elena never seemed inclined to stop spending time with the rest of them, Elyan never seemed uncomfortable with her there, and everyone had come to adore her, anyway. It was the most easy-going break-up Merlin ever encountered during his teenaged years.

Freya took time to coax into their circle, but Merlin had seen her hunched spine and downcast eyes and wouldn’t have dared stopped trying to lift that weighted loneliness from her shoulders. He kept a private tally of the smiles he earned from her, in the beginning; over the years, the number grew too large for him to count, lost among breathless laughter and grins that went on, and on, and beyond.

Both Lance and Gwaine, on two unrelated occasions, saved Merlin’s life. More accurately, they each saved him from mortal embarrassment caused by his own special concoction of clumsiness, barely-controlled disorganisation, absent-mindedness, and foot-in-mouth syndrome. In Gwaine’s case, said concoction also contained an (un)healthy dose of being a complete lightweight. He swore them both to secrecy, and neither of them had breathed a word of their first encounters with Merlin to a single soul since.

And then, Morgana.

Sharp-tongued, quick-witted, unyielding, fashionable, compassionate Morgana.

Morgana, whose silvery-violet Soul-Mark shimmered into sight on the pale skin of her shoulder one day as she and Gwen were chatting. On an otherwise unremarkable afternoon, the two of them realized they were soulmates.

 

If Merlin had to pick a definite catalyst for the whole... _mess_ with Arthur, it would be Morgana. She was, after all, the person most directly responsible for bringing them together. Without her, they may never have met, and Merlin just might have lived in blissful, soulmate-free solitude.

But Gwen had been the one to introduce him to Morgana, and Merlin wouldn’t give up his friendship with Gwen even if it meant being literally tied to Arthur for the rest of his miserable existence. (Arthur didn’t need to be _alive_ for it to count, did he?)

Truth be told, Merlin would be hard-pressed to cut Morgana out of his life, anyway. They shared a low-burning, cynical humour, a quiet fury with the world’s injustice. Gwen’s optimistic nature couldn’t grasp that darkness, despite her bond with Morgana. And despite endless jokes about third-wheeling with soulmates, Merlin spent most of his time with just the two of them.

It was during such a time, Merlin and Gwen splayed across the room as they revised for their exams, that Morgana discovered that her late father was not hers by blood.

Her biological father had reached out to her after two decades of silence, and she was livid.

“I can’t face him alone,” she told them, knees pulled to her chest as Gwen rubbed circles along her spine and Merlin leaned into her other side. Feeling the confusion and anger and grief sending tremors through her limbs. “I want to meet him, but I—them. I want to meet _them_. I have a half-brother,” she murmured, wondering. “I can’t face them alone.”

She lifted shining eyes to Gwen’s before she turned her gaze to Merlin, and honestly, how could either of them say no?

 

Merlin should have said no. He’d come along as emotional support. Not to talk or interfere, just to be there, to step in if Morgana lost strength, to keep her safe.

But _god_ , he was the one needing borrowed strength to make it through that meeting.

Morgana had chosen neutral ground: a quiet cafe, just large enough to give them relative privacy in public, at a slow hour to ensure plenty of empty tables between them and other patrons. The women walked inside in step, Gwen’s arm tight around Morgana’s waist. Their Marks shone in the soft lighting, obvious, and Merlin imagined them in that moment as protective sigils.

It wasn’t difficult to spot the two men that were Morgana’s blood-family. They had chosen a table for four tucked into a back corner, and somehow they looked like they had been cut out of a business magazine and pasted sloppily into the scene. Too grey, too hard-cut, too stiff for the easy warmth of the room.

They stood to greet the three of them as they approached the table. The younger man, presumably Morgana’s half-brother, stood by outermost chair on one side of the table, while Morgana’s father—god, Morgana’s _father_ —had claimed the one against the wall, leaving two open sides.

And only two open seats. But, fair was fair; Morgana hadn’t exactly bothered to specify how many people would be joining her for their first encounter. It wasn’t as though Merlin couldn’t grab another seat for himself.

Which he would have done, had a vague memory not snapped into focus at the moment.

“You were one of my Mum’s wo—one of my Mum’s bosses!” he blurted, an accusing finger jabbing straight at Morgana’s father’s chest.

He’d seen a few grim photos, heard the name, had thought it was familiar when Morgana said it again so many years later, but nothing further. Frankly, it was impressive that Merlin had managed to put it together at all after such a long time. And even more impressive that he cut the word _worst_ from the sentence before it escaped.

Merlin’s friends shot him frighteningly identical looks of shock and concern over their shoulders. Uther Pendragon pinned Merlin with his gaze, and Merlin understood in less than a second why his mother had hated working with him, if he’d always been able to make someone feel like an unwashed peasant with nothing more than a look.

And the first words that Merlin Emrys heard Arthur Pendragon speak weren’t so much _to_ Merlin as _about_ him, in the same voice he might have used to inform someone they’d exited the toilets trailing white from their heels.

“I hope you realize you’ve picked up a straggler,” he said to Morgana and Gwen.  “A disgruntled ex-employee. Or the son of one, it seems.” Either he didn’t notice the way the two of them stiffened, or he didn’t care, because he ploughed on as Merlin’s jaw dropped and his face heated. “Don’t worry about it; we deal with people like him all the time.”

“If you’re going to be rude to my friends, I’m leaving,” Morgana said, and Merlin was proud of the strength in her voice. Silk over steel.

“Oh, he’s your friend?” Arthur cast a doubtful glance over Merlin as Gwen pulled Morgana the rest of the way to the table, soothing. “I see.”

The more formal introductions were made while Merlin snagged a chair from a neighbouring table and set it at the open side. Morgana on his right, Arthur on his left, Gwen and Uther down the way.

Brilliant. Perfect way to feel more stuck-in-the-middle than he already did.

He gave Uther his best grin and a half-wave when Morgana introduced him. Considering his foot-in-mouth syndrome had already struck once, not even five minutes after stepping into the building, he figured it safest to keep as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. This was Morgana’s moment, and he didn’t have Gwaine or Lance to save him from disaster if he slipped up.

The warmth that Arthur expression had gained while talking to Morgana bled out into irritation. “You’re blocking the entire path sitting like that,” he scolded. Like he might tell off a child.

Merlin glanced behind himself at the wide open spaces and nearly-empty surrounding area in disbelief. Across the room, a middle-aged man turned the page of his newspaper.

“Sorry,” Merlin said anyway, and dragged himself in to give the nonexistent passersby more room to walk. The legs of the chair let out a squeal as they scraped across the floor.

Arthur’s already stiff shoulders tensed into a wince. “Is it possible for you to do _anything_ quietly?”

 _You just met me, arsehole. Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that?_ Merlin didn’t say. It was close.

“Sorry,” he did say, through a forced apologetic grin.

The moment Arthur turned back to Morgana’s quiet, halting conversation with Uther, his face smoothed into curiosity and hopefulness. Something almost like wonder.

Maybe Arthur just wanted this all to go smoothly, Merlin told himself, and Merlin was an unexpected wrench in the works. He didn’t have to be such an _ass_ about it, but if he cared that much about having Morgana in his life, Merlin could give him a free pass. For now.

Throughout the meal, Morgana would reach under the table and squeeze his hand like he knew she’d been squeezing Gwen’s since they’d left that morning. A silent _thank you for being here_ , even if he wasn’t doing much other than eating and throwing in a nod or a smile if the moment seemed to call for it.

Throughout the meal, Arthur found ways to nitpick at every aspect of Merlin’s existence. An all-too-loud and obvious _fuck you for being here_ , even though he wasn’t doing anything that a _normal_ person would consider worthy of criticism _._

Arthur’s free pass was close to expiring. Who tried to correct someone’s “improper” fork usage in a damn streetside cafe? Arthur fucking Pendragon, that’s who.

It wasn’t constant. It felt like it, and it sure as hell left Merlin constantly on-edge, but it wasn’t that the sole purpose of every word out of Arthur’s mouth was designed to punish Merlin for everything from his hairstyle to his table manners. Arthur asked Morgana questions with genuine interest, joked with his father, told Gwen that her dress looked lovely and that he was glad Morgana had a soulmate so kind. Merlin might have even liked him, if he hadn’t been present and interacting with him personally.

As it was, Merlin wanted to kick him right in his crooked front teeth.

Finally, their mugs had been all but drained, and the server would soon be returning with their bill, which Uther had insisted on covering. The strange jumble of confusion, frustration, anger, and anxiety that had taken up residence in Merlin’s chest had swollen almost to the bursting point. If he could make it out of the cafe, he could get home and scream it all into a pillow, and there would at last be room for the relief and joy he wanted to feel for Morgana.

He could make it. He wouldn’t be the one to ruin this for his friend by throwing a tantrum over a few judgmental comments. He wouldn’t. He could make it.

With a deep breath and a grin, Merlin stood up to excuse himself to the toilets.

At that very moment, their server came up behind him with the bill.

Merlin was a little muddled on the details of what happened next, but he knew it involved hitting his head, tripping over what felt like every chair and table leg in the vicinity, and knocking the poor woman’s clipboard across the room before he managed to regain his balance.

“Sorrysorry _sorry_ ,” Merlin said as he fetched the escaped pen and board and handed them back with a sheepish grin. “I’m a clumsy oaf, I know. Just part of my charm.” The server rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling, so Merlin considered himself forgiven and fled to the toilets.

The moment he returned, Arthur had his insults all lined up and ready to be fired out.

“Have you any common sense in that hollow space between your uncommonly large ears? I’ve been looking, but I’ve yet to see any evidence,” he hissed. “ _Watch where you’re going. Look behind you before you move back._ How simple do you have to be to mess up what any toddler could tell you?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was in the presence of _royalty_ and needed to be on my best behaviour to impress,” Merlin snapped back before he could bite his tongue.

Arthur leaned back, looking vaguely disgusted. “ _Common courtesy_ is what you consider impressive?”

“ _Arthur_.”

Morgana, along with the rest of the table, had caught on to the argument. Uther seemed unconcerned, but Gwen was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Hoping that the goodwill they’d earned with each other wouldn’t be spoiled just minutes before they parted.

Merlin clenched his jaw. He would _not_ be the one to spoil it. He wouldn’t do that to Morgana.

Taking a moment to visibly collect himself, Arthur smiled at his half-sister. “My apologies. I suppose it’s too much to expect other people to have been raised with manners, isn’t it?”

If Arthur had been looking to Morgana for solidarity in a coarse and uncouth world, he was disappointed.

“Enough. Merlin isn’t the one turning a civil conversation into an etiquette training camp run by an American drill sergeant cliche.” The pale green of her eyes had narrowed into slits that Merlin knew from experience could appear terrifyingly cold and unforgiving.

Merlin wanted to hug her, but that would probably be too “forward” and “inappropriate.” He wasn’t about to give Arthur any more excuses to berate him.

“It’s fine, Morgana,” he said as cheerfully as he could manage. “Don’t worry about it. We’re just joking around, aren’t we, Arthur?”

Arthur snorted. Merlin kicked him under the table until he said, “Right. Just joking around,” with equally false cheeriness.

They might have made it outside. They might have said their tense goodbyes and parted ways. Except Arthur couldn’t resist one more jibe at Merlin’s scuffed shoes on their way to the door, and the sheer pettiness of it pushed Merlin over the edge.

_“You are the most classist, uptight, judgmental, prissy, condescending ass I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet! Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me how to live my life? What I do and how I look is none of your damn business! You’re not my mother, and you sure as hell aren’t my friend, so keep your opinions to yourself!”_

If they hadn’t already been heading out the door, their shouting match would have had them kicked out in seconds. As it was, they were shoved along into the street while patrons and employees stared, glared, or studiously ignored them.

_“You think I’m the problem here? You’re a walking disaster! I get secondhand embarrassment just from seeing you walk across a room! Were you dropped on Earth last week? Has nobody told you how to function like a human being yet?”_

Merlin enjoyed a vicious stab of satisfaction when Uther yanked his son away by the arm, growling at him about childish tantrums and dignity in public.

It was short-lived, though, because then he caught sight of Gwen and Morgana’s faces, and his entire body flooded with a cold wash of guilt.

He bought their forgiveness with their favourite pastries (accompanied by a piteous display of grovelling), and Morgana agreed that it was in all of their best interests if she never made Merlin set foot in the same building as her half-brother again.

For a while, that was the end of it.

 

Of course it couldn’t last.

Merlin was Morgana’s best friend. Arthur was Morgana’s long-lost half-brother. That alone may have been enough to shove them together again.

But the burning stardust of their crashing galaxies hadn’t yet begun to settle. Their planetary offshoots had yet to curl together into shared solar systems. Soon enough, the miscellaneous detritus that formed their independent existences would become so mixed up with each other that neither of them could tell who had begun with what, or how they could possibly divvy it all up and go their separate ways.

So it was that Morgana quickly established a close teasing-but-loving sibling bond with Arthur, a strained-but-trying-their-best relationship with Uther, and introduced herself solidly into Arthur’s life and friendships.

So it was that Elena and Arthur crossed paths and were shocked into memories of a shared childhood, before Elena’s family moved to Merlin’s area, and eagerly reconnected.

So it was that Arthur’s close friend Mithian met Elena, and they shared one of those true fairy-tale Mark-at-First-Sight moments that Merlin had only seen in movies. Elena dragged Mithian into her—and Merlin’s—circle of friends, who welcomed her eagerly with a drunken movie night and Elyan’s Special Hangover Breakfast.

So it was that Mithian, who didn’t believe in keeping social spheres separate, insisted that all of her friends meet and become friends with each other, as well. Leon, Mordred, Sophia, Percival, and Vivian were absorbed into the nebulous mess Merlin’s life had become, and he wondered if he should get out before half the city made it onto his birthday guest list.

So it was that Elyan, Gwaine, and Lance joined a casual footie team that met in the park, which happened to be captained by none other than Arthur Pendragon himself.

So it was that Merlin’s friends asked Merlin how he could hate such a selfless, funny, and secretly-such-a-soft chap like Arthur, while Arthur’s friends wondered how Arthur could loathe someone as easy-going, charming, and generous as Merlin, and neither of them could answer without taking an hour after to calm down.

So it was that Morgana was visiting Arthur when Merlin texted her that he’d found a Soul-Mark shining near the base of his left ribcage.

And so it was that Morgana realized Merlin’s description of his Mark matched the one on her brother’s skin exactly.

 

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wish.”

“Did we just get pranked by the universe?Are these are going to disappear tomorrow with little signs in their place going ‘ _Joke’s on you! Here’s your real mark_ ’?”

“God. _Please_.”

“I can’t think of another explanation. I really can’t. I mean, I thought the world must know what it’s doing, slapping permanent love-tattoos onto people all over the place, but if this isn’t a mistake, then I don’t know what the fuck’s going on anymore.”

Arthur groaned and slouched into his chair in Morgana’s flat, where she was mediating their What the Fuck Are We Going to Do Now conference. Merlin spun on his heel to pace from the kitchenette to the main door and back again. And again.

“Do you have to make this worse than it already is by babbling like an idiot the entire time?” Arthur gritted, rubbing his temples.

“Not helpful, Arthur,” Morgana said.

“I’m sorry, how was any of the nonsense he just spewed any more helpful than what I have to say?”

“It’s how I cope with stress, that’s how!” Merlin threw his hands into the air and whipped around just in time to avoid colliding with a wall. “And I’m trying to drown out that little niggling sinkhole of horror in my head that isn’t actually mine, so I assume it must be you feeling all this disgust and dread since everyone says—says _soulmates_ have a close emotional bond or some shite like that, and if this is what they meant and this is how it’s going to feel, I might actually murder you.”

“Morgana!” Arthur’s expression flared into indignant outrage. “You’re not going to say anything to a death threat? We’re family. Shouldn’t you be biased in _my_ favour if you’re not going to do your job properly?”

“He’s just venting,” Morgana said with a casual shrug, looking far too amused. “You know soulmates can’t kill each other.”

“ _I will find a way_ ,” Merlin yelled from the next room.

Arthur dropped his forehead into his palms with a dull _slap_.

“Not if I kill him first,” he mumbled at his chest, careful not to let Morgana make out the words.

Gwen, whom they all agreed was the most sensible of the lot, was at that moment proving their judgment correct and doing actual, useful research on the matter at hand.

She lifted her head from where it had been bent over the screen of her laptop and waved her hand to get Morgana’s attention, who then let out a piercing whistle to get the attention of the panicking, newly-Marked soulmates.

“Thank you,” Gwen said. Morgana blew her a kiss. “I was thinking about this earlier, but I haven’t put much thought into Soul-Marks in general, you know, beyond the popular films and finding out what it meant for us. For me and Morgana, I mean, because of course it changes things, and we wanted to know—Er, that’s not important...” She cut herself off before her rambling went too far off-topic. “Well, anyway, just because romantic soul-bonds are the most common kind, that doesn’t mean they’re the only kind.”

Arthur had to suppress a groan. “Right, right, platonic bonds, best mates for life, can fall in love with different people,” he rattled off. They _knew_ this already. “That’d be a brilliant discovery if we weren’t more likely to be life-long enemies than anything even remotely resembling friends.”

Gwen snapped her fingers and pointed at him in triumph. “Exactly! Exactly my point. But you stopped at two kinds of soul bonds, platonic and romantic, when there are more that we never hear about because they’re obscure or uncommon or just not interesting enough to make the news.”

Merlin had frozen in his pacing in the door frame at the sound of Morgana’s whistle, and he still had one hand stuck in his hair where he’d been running it over his scalp.

“So, you’re saying…?” he prompted, unconsciously tightening the fingers tangled in his dark locks.

Gwen hesitated. Bit her lip. “Some people say that there isn’t only one path of Destiny, and if souls get...off-track, they fall out of alignment with the one they’re Destined for,” she said, dropping her gaze back to the blue-glow screen of her laptop. “They’re still Marked for each other, still have that connection. But the love that’s meant to be there is lost.”

Merlin and Arthur held their breath, waiting for her to continue.

“In…in severe cases, it’s not just lost, it’s reversed entirely. It becomes hatred. I think your Soul-Marks actually mean that you’re soul _hates_ , not soulmates.” She squinted at the screen again. “Or hatemates. The community seems a bit divided on what they want to call themselves. That’s oddly fitting, isn’t it?”

“I like hatemates,” said Merlin, at the exact same moment that Arthur said, “Soulhates sounds appropriate.”

Their heads whipped around so they could glower at each other. Morgana stifled a laugh, which she tried to turn into a cough when they both turned to glare at her, instead.

“Alright,” Merlin called out in a voice too loud for the flat as he made a show of searching the general area. Arthur wanted to shove a pillow down his throat. “Where’s the fuckin’ gift receipt, because I want to return this defective piece of trash.”

“You’re calling _me_ trash?” Arthur protested. “I’m not the one who looks like he just climbed out of a dumpster—”

“I’m talking about your personality, jackass—”

Gwen met Morgana’s eyes across the room. They felt the pleasant hum of warmth that was their bond, solidified in the shimmering colours swirling across their skin, and thanked _fuck_ their souls weren’t so incompetent that they’d gotten lost on the road of Destiny.

And then they remembered that both of these shouting idiots were irrevocably tangled up in each other’s lives _as well as Gwen and Morgana’s_ , and they wondered if there really wasn’t a return option somewhere.

They knew it wasn’t that simple, but really?

 _Fuck_ destiny.

  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit created by the wonderful [bravenclawesome](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bravenclawesome/pseuds/bravenclawesome)/[merlins-earmuffs](http://merlins-earmuffs.tumblr.com/) for the [podfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4604529) cover!


	2. Alternate Ending: Purple Prose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Morgana and Gwen solve the problem of Merlin and Arthur's soulhate status, and Merlin and Arthur are entirely too pleased about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is purely 100% [purple-prose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose)-laden crack. Not a serious alternate ending whatsoever. But hey, if you REALLY want Merthur to have a happy ending together in this AU, this is the closest you're gonna get.

“Some people say that there isn’t only one path of Destiny, and if souls get...off-track, they fall out of alignment with the one they’re Destined for,” Gwen said, dropping her gaze back to the blue-glow screen of her laptop. “They’re still Marked for each other, still have that connection. But the love that’s meant to be there is lost.”

Merlin and Arthur held their breath, waiting for her to continue.

“In…in severe cases, it’s not just lost, it’s reversed entirely. It becomes hatred. I think your Soul-Marks actually mean that you’re soul _hates_ , not soulmates.” She squinted at the screen again. “Or hatemates. The community seems a bit divided on what they want to call themselves. That’s oddly fitting, isn’t it?”

“I like hatemates,” said Merlin, at the exact same moment that Arthur said, “Soulhates sounds appropriate.”

Their heads whipped around so they could glower at each other. Morgana stifled a laugh, which she tried to turn into a cough when they both turned to glare at her, instead.

“There might be a solution,” Gwen continued, and suddenly all eyes in the room were on her. “It sounds a bit foolish, really. Well, extremely foolish. I think it’s a prank. Never mind, forget I said anything,” she trailed off into an apologetic mumble.

“Just tell us what it is,” Arthur said. “It can’t be anything more ridiculous than what’s already happening.”

“You’d be surprised,” Gwen muttered. “Morgana, could you come here a moment? I might need your help.”

The women spent a few moments in hushed conference while Merlin and Arthur tried their best to listen in. Damn, those two were good at whispering. Neither Arthur nor Merlin could make out a single word that passed between them.

“Really?” Gwen said at last, brow furrowed in concern.

Morgana shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. What harm could it do? Don’t answer that.”

Merlin and Arthur began to feel a tad uneasy about whatever the women were plotting. Especially when Morgana bade them stand directly in front of her while she stood on the sofa. Facing each other. Barely any distance between them at all.

It was a traumatic experience for the both of them, standing so close and resisting the urge to kill.

Morgana placed each of her hands on the back of their heads and took a firm grip on the short hairs there.

And slammed their foreheads together.

They staggered, swearing, but Gwen was there keeping them (mostly) upright and Morgana still hadn’t released their skulls, and she used their confusion to shove their faces towards each other.

“NOW KISS,” she bellowed, mashing their lips together like she would a pair of dolls.

The disorientation and instability finally caught up to them, and Morgana and Gwen let them drop to the floor.

“That was a terrible idea,” Gwen said.

“Definitely a prank,” Morgana agreed.

An oddly melodic moan came from below, and the women looked down to see Merlin stretching into awareness like a Disney princess. Neither of them was sure how he pulled it off, but there you go.

His eyes damn well fluttered open, and they looked unrealistically blue. And sparkly.

Morgana jumped off the sofa, over the men, and pulled Gwen to the other side of the room.

“I don’t know what’s happening but it’s fuckin’ weird and I don’t like it,” she whispered. Gwen nodded vigorously, dark eyes wide and fixed on their friends.

Merlin cast his gaze around the room until it fell on Arthur’s still form. He honest-to-god _gasped_ and his hands flew up to cover his mouth in horror.

“My _Lord_ ,” he cried, and swooned to Arthur’s side, gently brushing his hair from his forehead.

Gwen and Morgana exchanged horrified glances.

“You don’t…hate him anymore?” Morgana asked cautiously.

Merlin laughed. “Of course not!” His smile turned wide and dreamy. “The half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole,” he sighed, and bent down to press a kiss to Arthur’s lips.

Arthur began to stir in response to the kiss, his eyes sliding open as Merlin pulled away. They were shockingly blue, as well, like both of them had gotten colored contacts and magically put them on while being manhandled or unconscious.

Arthur rose unnaturally smoothly to a sitting position, and Merlin clasped his hands to his chest in relief.

“My love, I feared you’d never wake,” he exclaimed passionately. “I couldn’t bear the wretched thought that I was doomed never to look upon the shining ocean sapphires of your cerulean orbs again!”

“But we are two sides of the same coin, Destined to be blissfully united until the tremulous end of Time itself,” Arthur proclaimed fervently, grasping Merlin’s hands within his own.

Morgana and Gwen slowly edged towards the door.

“We’ve made a terrible mistake,” Gwen breathed. She could have shouted the words and the men wouldn’t have noticed, but she didn’t want to risk drawing their attention.

Merlin’s eyes glittered with silvery tears that spilled over flushed-rosy cheeks. “My truest desire is to never part from your godly presence, even were this glorious world itself to burn around us.”

“That your path and mine lie together is but the truth,” Arthur declared sweetly, cupping Merlin’s jaw tenderly in his palms. “Come now, let us make love and at last bless our union with the elixir of our pleasure.”

“Oh, _Arthur_ ,” Merlin panted ardently.

Whatever else he may have said, or more likely, moaned, Morgana and Gwen did not stick around to hear. They fled Morgana’s flat and didn’t stop until they were outside the building, staring up at the general area where two ex-soulhates were undoubtedly befouling Morgana’s sofa.

“Should we burn down the building?” Gwen asked.

“I think that would be safest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. Crack. You were warned.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Merlin and Arthur have their happy endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a brief wrap-up to show that this AU doesn't end in misery.

It ends like this.

As stubborn as humans are, it _is_ possible for them to adapt. The process can be long, painful, and frustrating, but it’s possible.

After the initial catastrophic collision, after the stardust settled and the solar winds died down, after the two careening pinwheels of cosmic merged into one singular galaxy, Merlin and Arthur and all the people they loved who loved them, too, perfected a system of warnings and awareness to keep the peace. To outsiders, the lengths they would go to keep the two of them at a distance seemed excessive and extreme. To those involved, it was a small price to pay to keep both beloved friends and family members in their lives.

Of course, adaptation can mean loss, and every person has their own path to tread. No matter how one might wish to keep friends close forever, their decisions are theirs alone. Including the decision to leave.

But, then again, adaptation can mean acceptance. Can mean opening up after a lifetime of shutting away. Loving, when one is marked by hate.

So it was that Arthur embraced a future that he would build for himself, without waiting for his purpose to be given to him, or reserving his heart for just one soul. He worked harder, loved deeper, and gave more than he’d once thought possible to create a world worth leaving to others.

So it was that Merlin found his peace in quieter ways, with the slow warmth of love grown from trust spreading through his limbs and burning away the bitterness he’d felt for so long. He and Gwaine would set their Soul-Marks side by side, one revealing love lost, the other love for a brother. They’d trace the differences, find ways for the patterns to interlock and connect, and knew they didn’t need a coloured patch of skin to tell them how deeply they were loved by one another.

(It would have been nice, and certainly more convenient, but occasionally, Destiny likes to say _Fuck you, too_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gwaine and Percival are platonic soulmates, if you were wondering.

**Author's Note:**

> **Kudos, comments, and constructive critiques are always welcome and much appreciated!**
> 
>  
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> 
> This is [the AU text post](http://aithuzah.tumblr.com/post/126537554386/kstewrpc-soulmate-au-where-they-hate-each-other):
>
>> soulmate au where they hate each other and when they find out they’re soulmates they’re like “where’s the fuckin’ gift receipt because I want to return this defective piece of trash”
>> 
>> that’s it that’s the au
> 
> { [come say hi!](http://aithuzah.tumblr.com) }

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Gift Receipt - written by veritably_mad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604529) by [bravenclawesome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravenclawesome/pseuds/bravenclawesome)




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